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FAQ How do I report a bug in Eclipse?
To manage and track Eclipse bugs and feature requests, the Eclipse Project uses Bugzilla. The main entry point to the Eclipse Bugzilla can be found at https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/. Feature requests are bugs with severity 'enhancement'.
Do not be shy; post a bug if you see something wrong, even if you are in doubt whether it really is a bug. The committers of the relevant component will quickly decide what to do with your bug report. Also do not think, Someone else will report the bug or at least the Eclipse developers themselves will see something so obvious. Even the obvious things need to be documented and reported to be fixed. Your help is crucial in continuously improving the quality and robustness of the Eclipse Platform.
Before posting a bug, be sure to check whether it has already been posted. You can use the Eclipse Bugzilla search engine. Search instructions can be found at the Bugzilla page under the heading Help With Bug Reporting.
In short, Bugzilla is split up in products, representing the major areas of interest in Eclipse: C Development Tools (CDT), Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF), JDT, and so on. To post a bug on the generic Eclipse infrastructure, choose Platform. Choose the component, such as UI, that you want to provide feedback on, and be sure to follow the bug-writing guidelines mentioned on the bug report Web site. You will need a password to access Bugzilla. This is mainly for your own protection; the intent is to keep the spammers out.
Writing good bug reports or feature requests is an acquired skill. A great place to learn the basic etiquette is, How to Ask Questions the Smart Way by Eric Raymond and Rick Moen. Note that Eric and Rick are not affiliated with Eclipse, and you should not contact them with your Eclipse questions. Their article is linked from eclipse.org and can be found easily on the Web using your favorite search engine.
Keep in mind that the Eclipse committers are few, and the community is large. Bugzilla tracks thousands of defects and requests, and the committers have limited time to investigate vague, poorly described, or inaccurate reports. Always include the Eclipse build number in your bug report, which can be found in the Help/About dialog.
See Also:
- Incomplete bug reports
- FAQ How can I search the existing list of bugs in Eclipse?
- FAQ What do I do if my feature request is ignored?
- Eric S. Raymond and Rick Moen, "How to Ask Questions the Smart Way" (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html)
This FAQ was originally published in Official Eclipse 3.0 FAQs. Copyright 2004, Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. This text is made available here under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0.